Mois : mai 2007

There are probably few people readier than me to build their 3D-printer, and only few pieces are available on the shop. The shop should be filled on regular interval, so I’ll wait another time to to order all parts to build Las Indias printer. I’ve just ordered the PowerComm board now to test the connection between the Mac and the future machine, there is probably some hacking-fun to have here 🙂

Until then, I’ve just installed RepRap java source yesterday on my computer, it’s lauching well from Eclipse if you follow the simple step-by-step instructions, I just wonder how difficult it’ll be to communicate with the external electronic board, I’ve never used any USB->Serial comm. tools before…

Now that people are putting their LED into balloons, the next step could be to make an array of these ballons the have a quick-setup blinken-light wall. All we need is a way to figure out how to maintain this array – something light enough to be only supported by helium ballon drag – and an electronic way to control which balloon to light.

It’s simple enough to take a lot of time, and if it’s becoming too simple it could easily be complexified: laser+camera to point which ballon to switch on – aka L.A.S.E.R. Tag from GRL – or some internet/mobile input to send image to the ballon array.

Take care, it’s not science-fiction.
Last 3 years, robots have been exploring Mars, sending back large amount of fantastic photos and data.
All these scientific experiments are directed by Humans, doing a great job upgrading robots from another planet, and producing an incredible month-by-month presentation of the robots life on Mars:

Google Maps has made it really easy to draw lines on its interface, that’s good to keep a small walking-log of last few days in Berlin.
The city is gigantic, it’s a tiring experience urban-hiking all day long (make me remember Paris before I got my skating shoes) and I’ll switch to bike in next days (or next summer) to discover the city further.

Mixing Google Maps KML output and Google Earth, you can obtain the superposition showed on the picture. Today, it takes a bit of time to point all the way on the map, it sure could be helped by some GPS tech, and some GeoRSS from Flickr, or PicasaWeb, would help a lot to show the photos taken during the trip.
GPS + Camera hacks already exists today, and I hope it would become mainstream in near future (less than 2 years).

I’ve been reading this morning an excellent piece of science about quantum physic, with this guy explaining to his dog the many-world quantum theory:

I’m sitting at the computer typing, when the dog bumps up against my legs. I look down, and she’s sniffing the floor around my feet intently.
« What are you doing down there? »
« I’m looking for steak! » she says, wagging her tail hopefully.
« I’m pretty certain that there’s no steak down there, » I say. « I’ve never eaten steak at the computer, and I’ve certainly never dropped any on the floor. »
« You did in some universe, » she says, still sniffing.
I sigh. « I’m going to move the quantum physics books to a higher shelf, so you can’t reach them. »